


so how do we win (won't be alone again)

by acnasa



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: M/M, Playgrounds, Suicide, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 01:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9524747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acnasa/pseuds/acnasa
Summary: title from "sick of losing soulmates" by dodie.inspired by stay in place (sing a chorus) by SoloChaos.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SoloChaos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoloChaos/gifts).
  * Inspired by [stay in place (sing a chorus)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1822504) by [SoloChaos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoloChaos/pseuds/SoloChaos). 



it starts with an introduction.  
"hi," tyler says. "i'm tyler. what's your name?"  
the boy, a teenager, jumps and turns to look at him. a smile spreads across his face and he replies, "hi tyler, i'm josh."  
tyler smiles shyly back, hands clutching each other behind his back. "d'you wanna be friends?" there's a bit of worry that josh won't want to; what teenager wants to be friends with a kindergartner?  
but he smiles wider and says, "definitely!" tyler beams back at him and jumps around happily. he has his first friend! his first friend ever!  
"tyler!" his mom calls. "honey, it's time to go."  
tyler turns back to say goodbye to josh, but he's gone. "bye, josh!" he yells anyway, waving to the empty field in front of him. "i'll see you later!"  
his mom holds his hand as he skips out to the car and climbs into his carseat himself. "who's josh?" she asks, carefully. "new friend?"  
"yeah!" tyler giggles. the car rumbles to life and they trundle out of the parking lot. "he's a teenager and he's really nice and he has bright yellow hair!"  
"oh, that's nice," his mother replies absentmindedly. a minivan on the main road is moving just fast enough for her to have to wait to turn. "honey, why didn't i see josh?"  
"he disappeared. i was talking to him though. he has yellow hair."  
"i know that, sweetie. i was watching you the entire time. but, um, i never saw josh."  
tyler frowns at her in the rearview mirror. "he was there. i talked to him."  
his mother turns onto the road and sighs. "honey, i know you haven't made any friends since you started kindergarten. are you sure you didn't... make josh up?"  
"no!" he cries. "no, no, he's real!" he strains against his seatbelt and kicks the back of the passenger seat. "he's real, i know it. and i've made friends, you- you just don't know!"  
"honey-" his mother tries to say, but something's snapped inside tyler and he's screaming and kicking the seat violently. "please, tyler-"  
"he's real, he's real, he's real!" tyler chants, eyes squeezing shut. he can feel his mom's hand on his leg, trying to stop him from kicking, but he doesn't open his eyes.  
neither of them see the truck as the car swerves in front of it. tyler doesn't see his mom get smashed into her seat, doesn't see her brain hit the moonroof. he feels her blood on his face and hears the glass smash and metal shriek as it's crushed and he screams at the top of his lungs as he's spun in a circle and scrapes his arm on something sharp.  
he finally stops and the air is foul-smelling, the scent that's in the air when they're at the gas station. something smells like smoke, too, but he's too dazed to open his eyes to check.  
someone's yelling, and then he's yanked out of his carseat and lifted onto a firm shoulder. the person's wearing a sweatshirt and he clutches at the hood as he's carried away. there's a big, scary boom that makes him scream, but nothing else comes. he wonders where his mom is. maybe she's waiting for the person to set him down so he can find her and go home with her.  
they're going to have tacos tonight. they can't miss tacos. 

/

the coffin is empty. there's nothing left to put in it.

/

they don't go back to the park.  
tyler is taken to therapy. he doesn't remember that day at all. the therapist, a nice man that says tyler can call him patrick, tries to trigger something that'll get him to remember so they can know why the car drifted into the wrong lane. nothing works, but tyler keeps going to therapy.  
in eighth grade, he's in the middle of a sentence when patrick stops him.  
"tyler. i've been... closely analyzing what you've been talking about for the past year or so, and i believe- i believe you have severe anxiety."  
"oh," tyler says, and of course his voice cracks. "oh." he laughs a bit, then says, "my friends joke about anxiety," before blacking out in the chair. he wakes up in a hospital and cries.  
at the end of ninth grade, his dad finally lets him go on lexapro. patrick sets him on a small dose, and being the distracted teenager he is, forgets to take it.  
he has his first full-fledged panic attack at a party two days before sophomore year starts. there's alcohol flowing freely, his friends are already drunk enough to have a full-day hangover, and there's too many people.  
he ends up in the bathtub, crying silently and breathing too much but not enough as two girls talk about their periods on the counter. he's pretty sure that they don't know he's there, but when he finally musters up the strength to get up and escape out the window, there's a few old-looking cookies on the counter with a heart drawn in spilt beer. 

/

at the age of sixteen, tyler is a mom, a dad, and a brother.  
his dad's death was sudden; overdosed on some sort of medication and died alone in bed. tyler had taken his siblings out to a movie and came home to find his already-decaying corpse stretched diagonally across the sheets.  
not even a week later, zack got his hands on the same medication. he almost went the same way, but maddie found him and called 911 like the smart little girl she was. zack was put on a watch, diagnosed with depression, and kept in the hospital for a week.  
tyler gets up at four, makes lunches, and then drops maddie and jay off at their friends' house. then he and zack go to school. he leaves early, comes home, and has dinner ready by the time maddie and jay are home and zack has finished his homework. it's a tiring but satisfying job, and he does it without complaint.  
nobody questions their routine, and he doesn't tell them anything.

/

he doesn't go to college.  
he tells people that he can't afford it; that earns him pity and sad smiles. the real reason is that he can't leave his siblings.  
zack attempted suicide again in his junior year, this time with a razor. he had almost bled out by the time tyler broke down the bathroom door, but he managed to get an ambulance to the house before zack was gone.  
the hospital bill made them eat dry pasta for a month.  
jay got hit by a car walking home from school. it was quick, painless; the doctors said he died immediately. they couldn't afford a funeral, so they watched as a plain, cheap coffin was lowered into a roughly dug hole next to their mother and father's gravestones.  
maddie cried. 

/

on his twenty-fourth birthday, tyler goes to the park.  
it's been abandoned since the accident. moss grows on the slides, stale water teeming with mosquitoes sits on the merry-go-round, and there's a boy with yellow hair perched on top of the monkey bars.  
tyler joins him, and together they watch the sun set over the dark forest. "hi," he finally says, when the sky is bright enough to reduce the trees to stark black shapes. "i'm tyler. what's your name?"  
"hi tyler, i'm josh," he replies in a sigh. his hair is the same color as the sun. "where're you from?"  
"here. columbus. i've lived here my entire life."  
"ah," josh replies. he has a tattoo sleeve and doesn't look a day over twenty-five. "you're the first visitor i've had in eighteen years. this is weird."  
"it is," tyler agrees. "everything's weird."  
the metal is cold under his hands and he wonders what would happen if he just fell. then he sees josh watching him out of the corner of his eye and forgets about it.  
"you look a lot like the last visitor to the park," josh tells him. "little boy, six years old. he was really nice."  
"huh. coincidence?"  
"probably."  
the sun sinks lower until the sky is a blaze of red and orange, lighting the park on fire with light. tyler sucks in a breath and pushes it back out. he should visit patrick soon.  
"why're you here?"  
the question is sudden and quiet. josh squeezes his eyes shut and grips the metal of the monkeybars hard. "i mean like, why are you here at the park," he adds.  
"oh, uh." tyler stares at the forest. he swears he can see two little glowing eyes in the bushes. a rabbit, maybe. "'s my birthday, and i was sorta drawn here. i dunno."  
"yeah, this place has a certain charm to it," josh laughs. his earlier tension is gone, replaced with crinkled eyes and tongues between teeth and shaking shoulders.  
tyler sighs and lays back until he's stretched across the monkeybars. josh joins him and they look up at the already-forming stars.  
"will you be here tomorrow?" tyler asks. "i wanna come back."  
"yeah. i'm always here."  
"okay."  
"okay."

/

tyler doesn't go back for another month.  
zack and maddie are starving, so he gets a job. it's a coffee shop, and all he has to do is take orders. simple, well-paying. for the first time in years, they go out to dinner.  
maddie can't stomach a kids' meal and zack barely finishes a side of fries. tyler eats half a burger and ignores the waitress's pitying state as he pays the bill.  
when he does go back, he has a bruise on his knee from tripping and falling down the stairs. he rubs it as he joins josh on the monkeybars.  
"hi," he says. "sorry i haven't visited. i got a job."  
"i know," josh says simply. "it's okay. things come up. besides, a few weeks is nothing compared to eighteen years."  
"ha."  
they sit in silence, watching the sun set. it's not very spectacular; mostly blues with a tinge of purple. the little eyes are back again, watching them from across the field. tyler stares back until they disappear.  
"can i kiss you?" josh asks. he doesn't say anything beforehand. tyler stares at him, nods, and kisses him.  
it's pretty good. better than that girl who had a cavity back in sophomore year.  
"i liked that," he voices when they break. "you're the first guy i've kissed."  
"same," josh agrees, and there's silence again. 

/

when tyler visits again, it's summer.  
three months.  
zack seems to be defeating his depression and maddie graduated middle school top of her class. tyler met a nice girl named jenna at work. after their shift one day, she took him to the space by the dumpster and kissed him.  
it wasn't as nice as the one with josh.  
the metal is hot as he climbs the monkeybars. for once, he's visiting in the middle of the day. josh isn't there, but after half an hour, he silently appears.  
"hi," he says. "how're you?"  
"living," tyler responds. "you?"  
"dead."  
"yeah, i'm on my way there too."  
"today's my twenty-seventh birthday."  
"happy birthday."  
"thanks.  
their conversations always seem to end in silence. then someone will ask something-  
"can… can you kiss me again?"  
-and the other will comply.  
"okay."  
josh kisses him, long, and it washes away all traces of jenna. he feels clean, soft, cool. a weak smile- his muscles are used to frowning- spreads across his face and he clutches at the monkeybars so he doesn't fall off. "thanks."  
"no problem. i enjoy doing it."  
"yeah, me too." tyler rubs at a rough ride on the underside of the monkeybars. "sorry i haven't visited."  
"'s okay. things come up," josh says simply. he doesn't look any older, and to be honest, he still looks like he could be nineteen. one of his feet swings back and forth beneath them. "how's your job?"  
"it's, uh, okay, i guess," tyler replies. thinking about jenna makes him feel weird, like josh is the only thing that's real. "it pays well, even though i'm only taking people's orders."  
"i used to work at a place like that. i made the drinks, though. some people had such complicated orders."  
it feels odd, actually talking. their conversations usually consist of silence, with the occasional question and answer. so tyler just nods and is quiet.  
he stays until the sun is completely gone, and then sleeps on top of a playset with josh at his side. 

/

"i saw you," maddie says simply.  
tyler doesn't pay her any attention; he's busy grabbing sandwiches out of the fridge. she stops him by shutting their lunch boxes. "tyler. listen to me. i. saw. you."  
"where did you see me?" tyler snaps, swatting her hand out of the way and tossing the food inside. "at work, picking you up? explain."  
"the playground," maddie retorts. "i saw you at the playground, tyler. where the accident happened."  
"yeah, the accident, whatever it was. so i went to the park. what's wrong with that?"  
"who were you talking to?" she cries, gripping the counter. "who were you kissing, who did you fall asleep with?" her eyes are shining with tears and she looks ready to launch herself across the kitchen.  
"his name is josh," tyler says cooly, dropping the rest of the food in the bags and zipping them shut. "he's twenty-seven. you've seen him."  
"no, tyler, i haven't," maddie says, surprising soft. "i've never seen him. i saw you talking to the air, kissing the air. there was nobody next to you." with that, she grabs her lunch and backpack and leaves.

/

"my sister said she couldn't see you."  
josh frowns and tightens his grip on the slick metal. it's raining, hard, and everything is dripping. "i'm here. i know i am."  
"i know you're here too," tyler agrees, risking his safety for a moment as he grips josh's hand. "she's just trying to annoy me, i know it. see her? over there, that kind of off patch of gray. she's watching us." he waves at the little glowing circles in the bushes and they disappear.  
"i'm here," josh insists stubbornly. rain runs in little streams down his neck and drips from his hair. it looks like he's made of melting ice. "i'm here, i'm right next to you. i can feel you." he squeezes tyler's hand.  
"i know you're here," tyler repeats, cautiously leaning forward and kissing him gently. "and if you weren't here, how would i be able to  
kiss you, huh?"  
josh stares at him, and then grins. "wanna go run through the field?" he asks, and without an answer, he drags tyler off the monkeybars and pulls him into the puddle-filled meadow. 

/

maddie comes into his room when he's almost asleep and shakes him  
awake.  
"tyler, i did some research on the park," she says as he rubs his eyes and sits up. "and, uh, i found something."  
"what," he mutters. "and you should be in bed, you have that science test tomorrow-"  
"around twenty years ago, a nineteen year old boy..." she swallows, audibly, and licks her lips. "he took his dad's gun and ran away from his house, and when they found him the next day, he- he had blown off the back of his head."  
"oh," tyler replies, because what do you say? something inside him feels itchy and he absentmindedly scratches his sternum in an attempt to soothe it.  
"and tyler, his name was josh. joshua dun. he was nineteen," maddie repeats. her eyes are wide and scared, with tear tracks drying on her cheeks. "and i found pictures, tyler, he had bright yellow hair and a tattoo sleeve. his family moved to washington after he died, and the obituary said that they got permission from the city to bury him in the field."  
the itch gets a lot stronger, so much so that it burns, and he bites his thumb. maddie stares at him for a minute, and then whispers, "goodnight, tyler," and leaves. 

/

he deteriorates.  
his days are spent on the couch, staring at the cracked and black television screen, contemplating what's real and what's fake. a week of this passes and zack comes home with news that he's been fired. jenna misses him, and she says that she wants him to come back.  
maddie doesn't talk to him. she creeps around the house, making her and zack pasta and leaving some in the kitchen for tyler while they're at school. sometimes, he gets up and eats it. most of the time, though, he doesn't.  
something inside him is shaking constantly, keeping him awake. it's like josh is in his chest, rocking his heart back and forth and screaming at him that's he's alive.  
he ignores it. 

/

"tell me about the accident."  
"no."  
"tell me," tyler warns, and he knows he doesn't look threatening with the bags under his eyes and bones showing through his skin. "tell me. i need to know."  
"tyler, i can't-" zack protests weakly. he doesn't know what's happened between his brother and maddie, and the confusion is showing in his eyes. "it'll destroy you. i can't."  
"tell me!" tyler screams, and then curls in on himself when zack instinctively scrambles away from him. "i'm sorry," he whispers. "please, just tell me what happened."  
so zack tells him.  
he doesn't remember much; after all, he was only three when it happened. but there's enough, from memory and spoken word, for a story to be strung together. at some points, he cries, and at other points his voice is shaking wildly. his eyes are always on tyler, watching for any movement, any change in emotion.  
when he's done, the little josh inside tyler is dead.  
"oh," he says after a minute of silence. "oh. i-"  
"i knew i shouldn't have told you," zack moans, tears leaking from his eyes and running quickly down his face. "god, i'm so stupid- maddie!"  
"what!"  
"do you remember patrick's number?"  
"no," tyler whispers. zack turns and stares at him, shocked. "i don't need him. i... i just need to take a walk."  
"what? tyler, no-"  
he's already out the door, wearing nothing but a ratty t-shirt and shorts. the bottoms of his feet sting as pebbles, hot from being tossed by car wheels, dig in. he doesn't pay any attention to them.  
somehow, he finds himself standing in the middle of the field. the park in behind him. everything seems gray, colors faded by rain and moss. there's a flash of yellow, though, and josh is in front of him.  
"i'm here," he insists. he's crying too. "i'm not alive, but i'm here. i'm here, tyler, you can feel me, i'm here." he pulls tyler into his arms and holds him.  
"you're nineteen," tyler mumbles. "i'm five years older than you were."  
"i'm twenty-seven-"  
"no, you're in your- your late thirties. you're not twenty-seven."  
josh pulls away, shaking. "i'm here," he says weakly. "tyler, i'm here, just-" he leans forward and kisses him, long and firm, as if he's trying to prove his point. tyler pulls away after a minute and hugs himself.  
"josh, you're- you're not alive. and if you were, you'd be almost forty. you'd have a wife and kids and have a happy life."  
"stop!" josh shouts, backing away a few steps. "stop it, i'm here-"  
"no you're not!" tyler screams back. his hands shake as they stretch out toward josh. "you're dead, josh, you shot yourself in the mouth twenty years ago and you're dead! i am alive! you are dead!"  
"stop, please," josh chokes out. he looks like a statue made of melting ice again, water dripping off everything. tyler realizes it's raining and scrubs the droplets out of his eyes. "tyler, i'm here. i'm not alive, sure, but i'm here, and i love you, tyler-"  
"i've only visited four times!" tyler shouts. his heart throbs- he wants to say those three words back- but no, it's not right. "josh, i'm like fifteen years younger than you, and this- this isn't okay!"  
"stop," josh sobs. his hands are squeezing the air, searching for something, and he takes another step away. "i'm real, i'm real, shut up-"  
"it's not okay, josh," tyler replies weakly, and then turns around and walks home. 

 

/

the house is quiet now.  
maddie stays in her room most of the time, madly researching anything to do with the park. zack hides in their dad's office. tyler lays on the couch and watches the blank television screen.  
it's been raining nonstop for the past three weeks. school's been canceled because the roads have flooded. tyler thinks it's josh trying to get him to come back, and he ignores it by burrowing under the blankets covering him and screaming to drown out the drumming noises.  
at night, he can still hear josh saying "i love you". it rings in his ears, too loud, and he scratches them in an attempt to deafen himself. after the third night of doing this, his fingers are slick with blood and there's skin under his nails. maddie comes downstairs to find him asleep on a blood-soaked pillow and ties mittens on his hands.  
"i'm fine," he protests weakly as she tightens the zip-ties. "maddie, i swear, i'm fine-"  
"shut up," she says harshly. "patrick's coming today. he's gonna evaluate you." her voice breaks as she turns away. "and since you're not mentally stable, CPS will probably take me 'n zack."  
"oh," tyler says to the empty room. he doesn't know how long he stares at the wall, but he blinks and patrick is in front of him.  
"hey, tyler," he says. "it's been a while, huh?"  
"i guess."  
"so, how long have you been seeing josh?"  
tyler blinks at him. "almost a year."  
"alright, and- and can you describe josh to me?"  
"he has yellow hair," tyler says slowly. he can feel his blood burning through his veins and his fingers twitch. "he has a tattoo sleeve, he has a nose ring, and he has a cute smile."  
patrick nods, writing something down on his clipboard. "and, tyler, you know that maddie and zack don't see josh?"  
"yeah."  
more questions are asked, and he answers obediently. when patrick leaves, he gets up, goes into the kitchen, and drinks glass after glass of water until he throws up into the sink. 

/

on his twenty-fifth birthday, tyler manages to cut off his zip-ties and goes to the park.  
oddly enough, it's sunny. the play-toys are bright, the moss dry and dead. some water is still at the bottom of the slide. tyler walks past it and sits in the center of the field, watching the forest darken as the sun sets behind it.  
someone sits next to him. "hi," josh says, quietly. "it's been a while."  
"i know."  
"happy birthday."  
tyler smiles a bit at that. "thanks."  
josh smiles back and scoots closer. "i missed you." his hair glows under the fading sunlight and his eyes are like the universe was compacted into two small orbs. "sorry."  
"don't be," tyler sighs. "i missed you too. and, uh, it's a little late now, but-" he takes a deep breath and says, "i love you too."  
josh's beam is so bright he has to squint. the stars in his eyes explode and coat the world in colors. "i love you, i love you," josh says again and again, pulling tyler into his lap and hugging him and kissing him. "i love you."  
"i love you too," tyler replies, a little weakly. he can feel the drain now, and inspects his wrists. josh looks at them too.  
"you'll be gone soon," he says softly. "you're sure you want to be here with me?"  
"yeah." tyler lets his hands drop. "maddie and zack deserve a better parent. i left a note next to the zip-ties and scissors too."  
"i didn't leave a note," josh says, a bit regretful, "but my family's better without me. my sister published a book, i think."  
tyler hums in response and kisses him. everything is washed in yellow-orange now. the blood on his hands and arms is a soft maroon.  
"josh?" he whispers after a minute. "i'm scared."  
"it's okay," josh reassures. his hands are comfortingly tight on tyler's waist. "it is a bit scary at the beginning. there's a lot of black and you won't be able to see or hear me very well. but a day or so afterwards, you'll be able to see what i see." he grins and adds, quieter, "like who is made of stars and what colors sound like and the taste of happy."  
"that sounds nice."  
"it is."  
tyler sighs again, and he feels free. something's changed. josh looks different too, getting darker as the sun disappears. "hey," he breathes out. "can... can you make yourself visible to other people?"  
josh smiles, gentle, and says, "i can." he lets go of tyler's waist and kisses him once, quick and soft. "i love you."  
"i love you too," tyler replies, and he blinks. 

/

at 6:48 pm, maddie walks into the field. she knows that her brother is gone; she read his note.  
she still cries when she sees his body in the field. he's surrounded by wildflowers, each one bright in a last push before their lives are claimed by winter. he looks almost peaceful, eyes shut and lips curved in a slight smile.  
she drops to her knees beside him and looks at his wrists. the cuts are jagged, still wet with warm blood, but her tears wash some of it away. if he was alive, he would yank his arm away with a hiss, muttering something about salt and open wounds.  
she laughs, weak and broken, stands up, and walks away. 

/

the funeral in the park is small, with only the two joseph kids and a few neighbors. patrick is there too, wiping his eyes under his glasses.  
maddie goes up and tells everyone how much she loved her brother and zack says that he shouldn't have died this young. patrick says that he wishes he could've done more.  
the priest asks if anyone else would like to say anything, and a boy in the back, with yellow hair and a tattoo sleeve and a nose ring, stands up and walks to the front.  
he doesn't say anything. his presence is enough. only three people know who he is, and they stare at him as he walks away and disappears into the forest. they all think they see a brown-haired boy appear beside him and kiss his cheek, but they all blink and both are gone. 

/

when the grave has been dug, maddie joseph stands at the edge. her brother's body is laying next to a skeleton. his sleeves cover the ugly gashes on his wrists, and she almost wants to reach down and show the world how her brother went.  
the skeleton has an almost-gone tank top on, a snapback laying near it's head, and the remains of red drumsticks in it's hand.  
"well, tyler," she says. "i believe you." she tosses the roses into the hole and sighs. "josh was real. he was real."  
her legs start backing her away, and when she reaches the edge of the field, she turns back. two boys are sitting on the edge of the grave, holding hands.  
she smiles and says, "i believe you."


End file.
